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While the Romantic Movement in Ballet originated mainly in Italy, Paris, and England, as America's first ballet companies were being formed, they took massive inspiration from their dance ancestors that came from the European Romantic Movement. The first Romantic ballerina, Marie Taglioni, was the first ballerina to dance "en pointe", the classic shoe that dancers use to stand on the tops of their toes to create an illusion of floating and mystique. While Taglioni was from Italy, her crucial step made ballet what it is today. Without those first dancers, America's Romantic Ballet movement and modern ballet would not have turned into what it was. The New York City Ballet was the first ballet company in America. Founded by George Balanchine, the Balanchine technique is not one of the most learned and performed techniques in the world. Whitney E. Laemmli explored the ancestors of America's Romantic Ballet years, like Taglioni, and how the expression of feminine emotions and idealization translated into the new territory that was American Ballet in her article, "A Case in Pointe: Romance and Regimentation at the New York City Ballet". What was unique about Balanchine's technique, was the modernity of the movement and the ability of the dancers had improved massively from the dancers in Europe. However, the modernity did not embrace the Industrial Movement in America, but the emotions from the Romantic Movement. So while it might be assumed that this new technique explores the modern ideals of humanity in America, it grasps onto the emotions provoked by nature, idealization, and romance. It utilizes the modern American dancer's ability to jump higher, turn faster, and dance for longer. It combines Romanticism ideals with modern movements and created America's Romantic Ballet Era.

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"Sunset & Catskills from Church Hill, Olana" (1870-72) by Frederic Edwin Church

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"Romanticism’s philosophy encompasses two distinct concepts of natural beauty: sublimity and picturesqueness.  Sublimity refers to the landscape’s ability to overwhelm the body with emotion by reflecting nature’s violence and terror" (Stevenson Library Digital Collections)

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The Romantic Era originated in Europe and spread throughout the world as the Enlightenment changed the way a lot of humans thought and acted. The Enlightenment emphasized science and logic whereas the Romantic movement valued creativity, human emotions, individualism, idealizing the world around us, and the suspect of science and logic. Romanticism rivaled the Enlightenment and challenged Americans to think less economically and politically, especially after the Civil War.

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What was America's Romantic Era All About?

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What was America's Romantic Era All About?

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The reason America's Romantic Movement was not as influential to the larger group of people as it was in Europe, was because it spoke mainly towards those involved with literature and art. The rest of America was thrilled with the evolution of the Industrial Revolution while Romanticists were more interested in the fact that humans were being replaced by machines and what that meant for the future of individualism and creativity. America's Romantic movement is most widely known as the Transcendentalism Movement though the values of the two are very similar. America's Romantic movement is most widely known as the Transcendentalism Movement though the values of the two are very similar. America's Romantic movement is most widely known as the Transcendentalism Movement though the values of the two are very similar. American Romantic's were also striving to find a voice separate from their ancestors in Britain and across Europe. It was easiest and most meaningful to express this voice through art and literature just as the Romantic Movement in Europe had, though these art forms evaluated American culture and beliefs, challenging most of the political and core values that Americans had built up from the time they arrived to the continent. Due to the freshness of the country, people had a lot of creative liberties deciding what they believe should be the core values of the country, and by what means should we discover them.

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The easiest way to evoke powerful emotion is through words, through poetry, through art. This is exactly what some of the greatest minds in American literature history did to gain momentum for the Romantics cause. I would argue that some of the beliefs expressed by these writers and poets are similar to those of the 1970s hippies, they pay special attention to the earth, honoring the earth, and leaving earth a better place. Writers like Emerson and Whitman worked throughout the movement to emphasize creating a nation where creativity and individuality of man flourished rather than stifling the opportunity to have an amazing country with corrupt politics and industries which was exactly what was happening on the other end of the spectrum during the 19th century. Poetry and essays from this time period acted as a sort of Romanticist Constitution, they presented values and ways of life that honor Romanticism.

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One of the most influential poets and writers from the Romantic Era. It can be argued that Emerson laid what Nasrullah Mambrol describes as the "foundations" for American Romanticism in the article "Romanticism in America", posted to the "Literariness" blog. The main goal of Emerson's writing was to revive the original spirit of America, directly combating the ideals of the Enlightenment. In fact, he was such a massive part of the starting point in the Romantic Movement that he inspired Walt Whitman to become a poet after hearing one of Emerson's speech. One of Emerson's poems, "Hamatreya", directly evaluates the consequences of Manifest Destiny and argues that the idea is exploitative of mans pure ideals, is greedy, and extremely selfish to believe that nature belongs only for mans benefit. An article about Emerson and Whitman written by Melis Mülazımoğlu expressed that, "The task of the poet, according to Emerson is to be the sayer, namer, more like a prophetic figure who can represent cosmic beauty through each diversity that makes it," (Mülazımoğlu1 98).

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"Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:

And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.

Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys

Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;

Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet

Clear of the grave."
-Emerson

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Whitman was a poet and writer from the Romantic Era, and strongly influenced by Emerson. I would argue that many of Whitman's poems relate heavily with the paintings being done at the time, mostly of picturesque landscapes, idealizing what America could be. One specific poem would be, "“The Splendid, Silent Sun" which observes the rural parts of America and Whitman's hopes and dreams for simplicity and raw nature. Though a lot of the poem displays feelings of warmth and hope, it also displays the traps of industrialization and how the longing for rural America is just that, a longing. Many of his poems don't focus solely on the ideals of Romanticism, but also compare and contrast reality from dreams in terms of urbanization in America.

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"La Sylphide" - The first Romantic Ballet to come out of the Romantic Era

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"La Sylphide" - The first Romantic Ballet to come out of the Romantic Era

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Filmed in 1906, there are no videos directly from the Romantic Era but this was originally choreographed and danced in the Romantic Era. One of the first videos of ballet

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Ellen Price filmed 1906 - La Sylphide (longer solo)

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Born directly after the Romantic Era, American choreographer George Balanchine was taught by dancers of the Romantic Era and his choreography and dancing took the movement quality and twisted it in a different direction, but still playing off of the movements characteristics and values.

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An ode to the Wild West (1865-1895), Balanchine incorporates the romantic playfulness of the Romantic Era in this piece choreographed in the 1950's. Listen to principal dancer  Teresa Reichlen speak about the piece and its influences.

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NYC Ballet's Teresa Reichlen on George Balanchine's WESTERN SYMPHONY

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The Romantic Era did not only utilize literature to convey the importance and message of the movement, but they also used visual mediums like paintings. The main type of paintings we will see come from this era will be landscapes and this is because of the importance of nature and emphasizing the fact that the beautiful landscapes of America were disappearing with the amount of industrialization and urbanization occuring at the time.

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"Catskill Mountain House: The Four Elements" (1843-4) by Thomas Cole

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A main component and connecting factor between painters and other artists involved in the Romantic Movement was the scepticism and repulsion of "Manifest Destiny". This is similar to the poets, Emerson in particular, aversion to the idea of Westward expansion. You can see in these two paintings above that there is a huge lack of human interference with nature, compared to John Gast's "American Progress", which shows almost an invading of a rural landscape as a result of Manifest Destiny.

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"Give me a perfect child—give me, away, aside from the
noise of the world, a rural domestic life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev’d, recluse
by myself, for my own ears only;
Give me solitude—give me Nature—give me again, O
Nature, your primal sanities!"
(Whitman, 1865:
Lines 10-12)

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Bauer, Claudia. “Romantic Ballet: An Ethereal Art Grounded in the Material World.” San Francisco Classical Voice, https://www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/romantic-ballet-ethereal-art-grounded-material-world.

Clark, Maribeth. "Marian Smith, Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. xx+306 Pp., Illustrations, Music, 24 Cm. Princeton Studies in Opera. Bibliographic Pp. [241]-300, and Index." Cambridge Opera Journal, vol. 13, no. 2, 2001, pp. 191-196. ProQuest, http://edmonds.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/marian-smith-ballet-opera-age-giselle-princeton/docview/203586225/se-2?accountid=1626.

Laemmli, Whitney E. "A Case in Pointe: Romance and Regimentation at the New York City Ballet." Technology and Culture, vol. 56, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-27. ProQuest, http://edmonds.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/case-pointe-romance-regimentation-at-new-york/docview/1664923488/se-2?accountid=1626.

Mambrol, Nasrullah. “Romanticism in America.” Literary Theory and Criticism, 5 Aug. 2020, https://literariness.org/2017/11/29/romanticism-in-america/.

Melis MÜLAZIMOĞLU. "LITERATURE AS CULTURAL ECOLOGY: A CULTURAL ECOLOGICAL STUDY ON EMERSON AND WHITMAN." Journal of Awareness, vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 95-104. ProQuest, http://edmonds.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/literature-as-cultural-ecology-ecological-study/docview/2575055402/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.26809/joa.6.2.01.

“Romanticism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism.

Virts, Sharon. “American Romanticism: 19th Century Literature & Ideology - Sharon Virts: Author.” Sharon Virts | Author, 30 June 2020, https://sharonvirts.com/2020/04/18/american-romanticism-19th-century-literature-and-ideology/.

“What Is American Romanticism?” Omeka RSS, https://omekalib.bard.edu/exhibits/show/hudson-valley-sublime-romantic/what-is-american-romanticism-.

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https://youtu.be/0b86BOYez8A

https://youtu.be/1r1SU2Gz60g

https://youtu.be/8nCx0H2xHC8

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Cited underneath photo used.

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I hope you all enjoyed looking through this Padlet! I had so much fun making it and exploring the contrast between our textbook and the Industrial Revolution, and the movement going on that we didn't learn much about that was in direct combat with most everything that America was building at the time. I urge everybody to go read Emerson and Whitman as their poetry and essays have truly held through the test of time and can be applied to any point in history. I also hope you watch the videos of the ballet's I included. Ballet is something I love so deeply I had to find a way to include it into this project. I learned so much from this research project and I hope you all did too!